


Feels Just Like I'm Falling for the First Time

by marcobottsfreckles



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Humor, M/M, it's just a big dumb romantic comedy, lil bit of angst maybe, trigger warning for dead animals later on??
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 18:50:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1993950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcobottsfreckles/pseuds/marcobottsfreckles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean and Marco are fast friends when they meet at a party of Sasha’s in the fall. In fact, it seems Marco’s presence is helping him deal with his lingering affection for Eren Jaeger. But there’s something Jean doesn’t know about Marco that threatens to change their relationship forever - something everyone else was already aware of.</p><p>Also featuring:<br/>Eren Jaeger, who has a boner and can't figure out what to do with it<br/>Sasha Braus and her Prius<br/>Armin "Fuck the Police" Arlert<br/>morning coffee with Connie Springer<br/>Moblit Berner, whose life wasn't supposed to end up like this<br/>and more!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feels Just Like I'm Falling for the First Time

Sasha’s bonfire was on the beach that year. September was too cool for swimming, but the light reflected like liquid gold off the tiny, crestless waves and the sand shifted underfoot with every step. Marshmallows were roasting and beer bottles were clinking at the modest fire pit halfway up the beach, and most of Sasha’s guests gathered there. Jean Kirschtein sat close to the water instead, picking zebra mussel shells from the sand and arranging them into spiral patterns. He knew he was sulking, but he didn’t care. His germophobe boss had made him clean the tattoo shop three times that morning, he set (and put out) a small electrical fire in the back room, and he was forced to explain to some insistent, moronic customer that the shop did not, in fact, perform eyelid piercings. It had been an hour-long conversation. No, Jean was not willing to socialize just yet. He gathered a few flat rocks, tossing them across the surface of the lake. One skip. No skips. Two skips. One again. 

“You look like a scene from a movie right now,” said a voice just to Jean’s right. He whipped around to find a tall, broad-shouldered guy looking down at him with some serious doe eyes. A pair of antlers wouldn’t have looked out of place on him, and for a split second Jean imagined the guy’s bust in place of the stuffed ten-point buck on Sasha’s bedroom wall.

Bambi boy leaned over. “What’s up?” he asked. “You’re making a face.”

“It’s just, uh. Who are you? What are you even doing here?” It wasn’t supposed to sound accusatory, but Bambi over there raised his eyebrows like he was insulted. 

“Armin brought me,” he said. “He thought I’d get along with his friends. I dunno, though, some of them seem a little abrasive.” 

Jean flushed. 

“I wasn’t trying to be!” he said, “It’s just – I mean – everyone here is a childhood friend and then suddenly some rando is right fuckin next to me, like –“

The tall stranger laughed, drowning out the rest of Jean’s floundering. 

“It was a joke,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. I’m Marco, by the way.”

“Jean.”

Marco dropped down to sit next to Jean, who got a good look at his face for the first time. Man, his eyes really were huge. His cheeks and the bridge of his gently curved nose were splashed with freckles, and his wide forehead was partially hidden by dark hair with a truly ill advised center part. Strong jaw, though. It almost made up for the haircut.

Jean leaned back on his hands. “Why aren’t you up with the rest of the party?” he asked.

“I came to check on you, actually,” said Marco, tugging on the hem of his shirt. “Eren said he was mad that you were over here moping, but I could tell he was actually kind of worried. You doing okay?”

“I’m fine, just had a rough day at work.” Jean looked out at the lake without elaborating. “Well,” he said after a few minutes, “I guess we should head over there, if Jaeger’s just gonna piss and moan without me.” Marco flashed a bright smile and followed Jean to the fire, where Sasha was making a big deal of how many marshmallows could fit in Connie’s mouth.

Jean pointed to Connie. “Look at his face,” he said. “He’s gonna choke after another marshmallow. Two, maybe. Watch.” A strangled noise escaped Connie’s throat as Sasha crammed the final marshmallow into his mouth. With a frantic expression, he bent to spit them all into the fire and Sasha chided him for wasting food. 

Jean sighed. 

“They do that for fun all the time, you know,” he said. This earned an amused snort from Marco, so he continued. 

“Those two, Connie and Sasha, are my roommates. Our apartment can get pretty wild sometimes. Oh my god, there was this one time where – wait, never mind. That won’t be funny unless you know what Tibetan throat singing sounds like...” 

They leaned close together and kept talking, even when stories of Connie and Sasha’s antics ran out. Marco seemed enthralled with every word Jean had to say, nodding and adding commentary here and there. He and Jean scooted closer as the night went on, onto their own little patch of sand, and were too absorbed in each other to hear when Eren called for Marco. Eren knelt and shoved his head between them. “Hey freckles, Armin’s looking for you. He’s heading out pretty soon.”

Marco glanced at Jean and pursed his lips. “Oh. Right.” He sounded dejected. “I guess… I guess I’d better go now.”

“I could give you a lift home, if you want to stay,” said Jean. “It’s no big deal.” Marco beamed and accepted, running off to tell Armin he wouldn’t need a ride.

Nearly everyone appreciated Marco sticking around. He laughed politely at Reiner’s butt jokes and listened, enraptured, when a drunk Ymir insisted on explaining in detail how she and Krista got together. Marco applauded her re-enactment of their first kiss and she barked a laugh, putting him in what she claimed was an “affectionate headlock.” When the fire died down and most of the crowd had conveniently disappeared, he hauled Sasha’s massive cooler down the beach into Connie’s equally oversized jeep.

Later, driving him home, Jean finally thought to ask Marco how he met Armin in the first place. 

Marco giggled. “We ran into each other a couple times at Barnes and Noble, and, well. He’s really cute so I asked him out. He actually said yes, and we dated for about a month before he broke up with me.”

“For a month?” said Jean. “Ditching after a month doesn’t sound like Armin.”

Marco fidgeted with the bottom of his shirt again. “I didn’t expect it, either,” he said. “It was really sudden.”

“Mind if I ask what happened?”

“Well,” said Marco, “We got into this really heated discussion about the government last week. I was telling him that I was more moderate and explaining why I didn’t agree with some of his ideologies, and he got weirdly calm all of a sudden and was like, ‘Marco, I’m sorry, but I can’t be romantically involved with someone who allows himself to be blinded so thoroughly by conservative capitalist propaganda. I hope we can still be friends.’ It’s like… it’s crazy, I don’t know. He’s the kind of guy who means it when he says ‘fuck the police.’ He really means it.”

By the time Marco finished speaking, Jean was laughing so hard he had to pull over. “Okay, that,” he wheezed, “Sounds more like Armin. Jesus Christ dude, I’m sorry but that’s hilarious.” 

“Don’t be sorry. I’m actually glad he ended it. It almost felt like I was coming between he and Eren. It was getting uncomfortable.”

Jean was quiet for a long time. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. “You probably were. Coming between them, I mean. It isn’t your fault. Jaeger’s in love with Armin.”

“You think so? I thought Armin was the one in love with Eren.” 

“I wouldn’t doubt that, either,” said Jean, and the conversation was over. His mouth was a hard, thin line for the rest of the trip, and Marco was silent until they said goodbye in his driveway. 

A few days later, around seven a.m., Jean hung limply off his couch and waited for his coffee to brew. Connie wandered out of his room before long and flopped down on the other cushion. 

“You look like shit, Jeanbo,” he said, patting Jean’s cheek.

“ ‘S cause I feel like shit. And quit calling me that.”

“You getting sick? I have some cold medicine, if you want.”

“I’m not sick,” said Jean. “I’m tired. I was up all night thinking about fucking _Jaeger_. “

Connie frowned. “Thinkin about fucking _Jaeger_? Or thinkin about, like… _fucking_ Jaeger?”

Jean dragged his hands down his face and groaned. “Both,” he said, and Connie pulled him into a side hug. 

“Me and Sasha got your back, baby,” he said. “And Bertl too. Plus the bad haircut guy from the bonfire, I bet.” 

“You mean Marco? I don’t think I’ll see him again. He didn’t ask for my number, and it’s not like I have a facebook or anything.”

“I don’t think it’s the end for you guys,” said Connie. “You shoulda seen yourself. You were like Bromeo and Juliet. Star crossed homies, destined to meet again.” Jean elected to ignore him in favor of the coffee pot, now full. 

Work that day did a good job of drawing Jean’s thoughts away from Eren. Levi, his boss, had been allowing him to take on more complex projects lately, and he welcomed the distraction. He inked loose, sketchy lines onto a customer’s shoulder, unconsciously sticking out his tongue as the design took shape. Changing needles and swapping an orangey red ink for the black he’d been using, he set to filling in large expanses of skin. Jean was so absorbed, with his nose an inch from the client’s skin and his tongue dangerously close to touching her, that he hardly noticed two hours passing as he finished up the tattoo. Finally pulling away, he appraised the completed piece and smiled. The watercolor-style poppy blossoms sprawling over the woman’s shoulder and back were some of his best work, and with her permission Jean snapped a quick photo of them. Levi saw he was finished and sent him to organize the front desk, eyeing the way he rubbed his sore hand and muttering something about brats who needed to take breaks before they hurt themselves.

A few minutes into shuffling through flash, paperwork, and love notes from Reiner (why Bert kept any of them at work was a mystery), Jean’s phone buzzed and he jumped.

New Message from: Unknown  
Msg: hey jean! it’s marco :D  
Msg: i got your # from armin. hope that’s okay with you!!

So Connie had been right about Bromeo. Huh. Jean bit his lip as he tapped out a reply. 

To: Bambi Boy  
Msg: yea, of course. whats up w/ you man?

From: Bambi Boy  
Msg: watchin’ movies with my main girl! <333  
Msg: [picture message]  
Msg: && you?

The photo was a selfie. Marco sat on a brown leather couch, squeezing one arm around a girl who shared his dark hair and rounded nose. The girl’s wide smile showed off a slightly crooked set of adult teeth that she hadn’t grown into quite yet. Shit, those two were cute. Jean pulled up the photo he’d just taken of the poppy tattoo.

To: Bambi Boy  
Msg: [picture message]  
Msg: just making some customers a little more colorful. cute kid, btw. she your sister? or are you a daddy already

The next few messages arrived in rapid succession.

From: Bambi Boy  
Msg: lil sis  
Msg: i’m NOT A DADDY  
Msg: [picture message]

The photo was a close up of Marco’s face, slightly blurry and wearing an expression somewhere between alarmed and disgusted. Jean smirked. This guy was a dork. Levi walked by, slapping the phone from Jean’s hands and pointing to the pile of papers he had yet to organize. He got back to work, but his conversation with Marco continued until he left the shop. 

When he reached his car, Jean received one last text message. 

From: Bambi Boy  
Msg: hey, it was nice talking to you today! would you like to hang out this weekend?

To: Bambi Boy  
Msg: hell yea. details?

From: Bambi Boy  
Msg: not sure yet. i’ll call tomorrow, k? :D

 

Jean stuck his phone back in his pocket with a smile. Tonight, he decided, was the perfect night to surprise Sasha and Connie with dinner. He felt like rounding out the day with something impressive, so he headed to the fancy supermarket across town and grabbed four Cornish game hens. What would go well with that? Rosemary, definitely. Maybe some garlic bread and a spinach strawberry salad. He could pair it with a nice Chianti. God, he was good at this.

Back at the apartment, he struggled to set the groceries down in a way that didn’t knock over the spice rack or spill onto the stovetop. Their kitchen was small and almost perfectly square, with canary yellow walls and peeling laminate countertops. Frilly curtains lined the window, and the silly crayon drawings displayed proudly on the fridge (including a horse with googly eyes labeled “JEAN” in huge letters – thanks, Connie) gave no indication that the apartment’s occupants were in their early twenties. Jean hummed as he set the oven to broil and piled ingredients onto the counter. The second he broke out the aromatics, Sasha poked her head around the corner. Catching sight of four raw chickens, her eyes widened. She flicked her gaze up to meet Jean’s. 

“So. Are you planning on eating all that alone?” she said. She went back to staring at the chickens. “Those look like some really tasty birds. It would be a shame not to share them.”

Jean chuckled. “I’m cooking for all of us tonight, don’t worry.” 

Sasha whooped and shook her fist in the air. “What’s gotten into you, though? You’re humming something. And gifting us with delicious Cornish hens. When are you going to start sulking again, eh?”

“I was just thinking about how awesome I am. It put me in a good mood,” said Jean. It was unclear whether he was joking. “I did a couple really sweet tattoos today, and Marco from your party the other night texted me. You know, just ‘cause he missed me. ‘S all been making me feel pretty generous.” He returned to rubbing olive oil over the surface of the chickens, then stuffed them with rosemary and lemon wedges. 

“Oh, and this dinner?” he added. “Gonna be monumental. Prepare yourself.” 

Jean spent the majority of the next morning staring at his phone. He was curious about what Marco had in mind for the weekend, and he wanted another dose of the validation that came with having someone invite him out. He ran a few errands, ducked into the shop to deliver leftovers to Levi and Bert, and ended up back on the couch with Netflix before he got anything else done. The phone rang halfway through “The Proposal,” and Jean scrambled to pick it up.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! This chapter seems really short to me, and it is introductory, but there's still a pretty good chance the rest of them will be of a similar length. 
> 
> For the young folk: Chianti is a wine that would go well with the dinner Jean's making.
> 
> It would be delightful if you visited me at my tumblr, marcobottsfreckles.tumblr.com!


End file.
